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The four major candidates for Anchorage mayor – Amy Demboski, Andrew Halcro, Dan Coffey and Ethan Berkowitz – identified many of the same problems facing the municipality in the coming term. A thinned police force attempts to deal with increasing problems of gun violence and public safety. A chronic inebriate population of homeless people impacts larger areas of the city. Public infrastructure needs to be maintained going forward, while some projects, such as the port expansion, have yet to be built out. And education outcomes for the next generation must improve, with a muni-wide goal of having a 90 percent graduation rate by the year 2020.

The perfect blend of clear weather and intense solar storms last week produced spectacular displays of the aurora borealis over Eagle River. Those willing to wait out the night and brave winter weather were treated to heavenly spectacles rarely rivaled in Southcentral Alaska.

It’s been a whirlwind year for Simply Unique Hair Salon owner Tina Novotney. The purchase of a new hair salon, baby number two in November, a month of maternity leave, then back at the new business she started, which she said only recently got a sign indicating the new name.

Chugiak High School graduate and Noise Brigade front man Mikel Henry said he and his bandmates are taking their pop punk show on the road. Their latest album, “Get Rich or Die Crying,” was released Feb. 17. But Henry said the band’s not out for fame and glory.

When he was four, Bryce Tasso was writing out numerals in every system he could learn about – Mayan, Roman, Ancient Greek. In kindegarten, he got bored at school and started reading college-level textbooks on anatomy and economics that he’d found. Later, at home, while his parents and younger brother played outside, he scrawled the mathematical equations he’d read in the economics textbook in chalk on the driveway.

With a field of 12 candidates, the race for Anchorage Mayor (elections Tuesday, April 7) is heating up. Some political heavy-hitters are in the race, including former Anchorage assemblyman Dan Coffey, former Alaska state legislator and Anchorage Chamber President Andrew Halcro, former Alaska state legislator Ethan Berkowitz, and current Anchorage Assembly member Amy Demboski from Chugiak-Eagle River. At a meet and greet March 13, Demboski said she and her campaign staff were preparing to launch a strategy going into the final weeks of the campaign that includes a big media push.

Seventy-eight dog teams, including locals Jim Lanier of Chugiak and Philip Walters of Eagle River endured a sloppy start to this year’s Iditarod during the Ceremonial Start on March 7. The 11-mile trek commenced from Anchorage’s Fourth Avenue, down Cordova Street, then on bike trails before ending on the dog trails near Campbell Airstrip.

Two Eagle River businesses were burglarized in the first week of March, with a total of $14,000 worth of items stolen. The first burglary, at June Agnes Circle off Monte Road, occurred at a newly-constructed home owned by Alexander Home Construction. It was reported to police the morning of March 3, and occurred sometime the night before. Anchorage police reported signs of forced entry through the man door of the garage, and noted “the gas was turned off and all the plumbing removed with a fair amount of skill” by the person or persons who stole an on-demand hot water heater inside.

After West High sophomore Katherine Murray finished a presentation on suicide prevention at Haines Middle School last month, a little girl came up to her with a question. She wanted to know what she could do for a friend who was feeling depressed. Then she admitted that she was the one who was feeling depressed. She started crying.